I had already realized that in Improv (and in life – like everything else in Improv) the best way is to be myself, just as I am (read all about it in previous posts), but then a new obstacle emerged – what happens if I am myself, just as I am, and I fail? Meaning, not moving or making the audience laugh or create a boring, empty scene. If I fail – what does it say about me? Just as I am???
It means that I’m a failure – that’s the simple equation my mind made. This equation spiked my fear levels so high that failure was not an option for me, the pain that came with failure was so intense and real that I did everything possible to avoid it. The thing is, no one can really avoid failure and the even-more irritating truth is: true freedom only comes with the willingness to let go of the fear of failure, only there does true courage exist.
I mostly felt the fear of failure performing in front of an audience, especially in live entertainment shows where failure is very harsh and very clear – you say a line that’s supposed to make the audience laugh, but no one laughs. It’s a horrible feeling! At that moment the inner judge (which I mention in my previous post), sits heavily on my shoulder and whispers loudly in my ear: “You’re a failure! I told you you weren’t funny, forget about it, quit now!! They don’t like you!!” In those moments I would stress out and try even harder to be funny, the harder I tried, the bigger was the failure, it was a very sharp downward graph, an extreme waterslide. I would finish a show sweaty, exhausted and most of all – wanting to live under a blanket for about a month. On the other hand, I was immensely intrigued by these moments, can I choose differently? Can I rise above the moment of failure? Is it possible not to take failure so hard and so let go of it, clear away that scary cloud over my head?? I spent years figuring it out, and I developed a method for myself. It’s a 3-step method that works for me both on stage and in life. It only takes a few seconds on stage, in life it takes longer. I present it to you and I hope it also helps you to deal with failure.
Step 1: Contain the Emotion
The moment of failure stings. I’ve never been stung by a jellyfish, I’ve only ever heard how much it burns and stings and I bet it’s 10 times worse in my imagination than it is in reality. To me, the sense of failure is like a jellyfish sting on the inside. It stings, it hurts, it’s an unbearable feeling we must eradicate – and the sooner the better.
As I was coming home from the kindergarten with Ori, my 4-year-old son one day, he told me “You know, mom, today in kindergarten I wanted to talk during get-together and the teacher wouldn’t let me, it was very disannoying” (he, naturally, meant disappointing). “You know,” I told him, “there are some feelings we don’t like feeling in our body, so we’d rather not feel them at all. But if we only dare feel them, we’ll stop being afraid of them. If, when these feeling come, we’ll dare feel them, they’ll also disappear faster. Because what’s scary about them is how they feel, but as soon as we feel them, we’ll stop fearing them. It won’t be pleasant, but at a certain point it will disappear because the next feeling will come…” Wow… I thought to myself, either I’m on to something here or I just delivered the biggest crock of bull ever. And then my little guy started to cry… “Why are you crying?” I asked him. “I can really feel the disannoying”, my genius replied and after a moment he calmed down and asked: “Mommy, who is Napoleon?” And that was it… “Did you get over the disannoying?” I asked (I’m that kind of mom, a nag) “Yes, mommy, you were right, it’s gone.” I was shocked. “Well, you know kids, they’re super resilient”, I said to myself, but I couldn’t shake off the thought of what I had said back in the car. I just had to try it for myself – on myself – and the more I tried it, the more I realized that this was indeed the first step in this whole process of dealing with the fear of failure. What I had said in the car, almost distractedly was precise: The more we dare feel that stinging sensation, the less afraid of it we will be. The fear is from the notion that we won’t be able to contain it, that it will overtake us, we steer clear of uncomfortable feelings. The only way to stop fearing them is to dare experience them. On stage, this process takes me (today, after some practice) a few seconds. I said a line that didn’t get any laughs (or any other failure), I let myself feel that jellyfish sting. And then, after a sufficient amount of time has passed (in life it takes more than a few seconds) I move on to step 2, which is critical.
Step 2: What Happens on the Outside
As soon as you dare feel the failure it pulls us into an inner spiral of thoughts and mental self-flagellation. The way out of it is to turn our attention to what’s going on outside – what people look like, what they talk about, listening to a song that moves us, talking to someone else, anything that diverts our attention outside our body and mind. On stage, I immediately turn to my partner – what does he/she look like, what the eyes tell me… Sometimes I even check out the audience – how do they sit? What are they wearing? Etc… In real life, I hold on to anything that may help me at that moment. I remember going to pick up my kids from the kindergarten one day after I’ve had a really lousy day. I sat in the car for 10 minutes before going inside, trying to guess how much random people on the street paid for their clothes. Only when I felt I had truly gone out of my head did I step out of the car and go pick up the kids.
Step 3: Conclude – Don’t Get Unglued
After managing to get out of myself and from that stinging failure sensation, after spending and diverting my attention outside for enough time, it’s time to go back to the failure and figure out what I can change for next time, to find 2 things at the most that may have caused my failure and think how I can change them before next time. The trick at this step is leave the criticism and self-flagellation behind, there’s no room for that, this is a cold step. On stage, I can work it out within seconds – I may have spoken too loudly, or too softly, I may have overacted… There are many possibilities, I examine the situation with a level head, I have no time to waste being fussy or indecisive or to self-flagellate, I reach a quick conclusion and try the change on the spot (which doesn’t always work either, which leads me to draw a new, different conclusion and change again). This takes a little while longer in real life, which allows and even invites the self-criticism and “flagellation”, but you must insist on leaving them out. If they don’t stay out, go back to step 2 (diverting your attention outside of yourself) and when you feel you’re ready, return to step 3.
The most important thing in the entire process is to do it with love for ourselves. It’s OK to fail, that’s how we learn, that’s how we progress, and it’ll happen if we dare fail and learn lessons that are right for us. Self-criticism will take up to the top as long as we don’t flagellate ourselves along the way. We must take a leap of faith and trust ourselves to handle everything. Only then will we truly be able to soar.
P.S.
I read these lines about a month after writing them, after an unsuccessful show. Conclude – don’t get unglued -is a blessed reminder. ?
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Like!! Thank you for publishing this awesome article.
Thank you!